Investigative police under Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security initiated an investigation on Friday into a criminal slander case pursuant to Article 122 of the Vietnamese Penal Code in relation to the article “Dương Chí Dũng và những triệu đôla,” published April 24 on the BBC Vietnamese website under the byline Nguyễn Hùng.
” />The article, which can be translated as “Duong Chi Dung and the millions of dollars,” included these lines:
“Theo ông Dũng, người đưa tiền của bà Lan cho ông tên là Tiệp. Các nguồn tin nói đây là ám chỉ thiếu tướng Trần Quang Tiệp, trợ lý Bộ trưởng Bộ Công an Trần Đại Quang.”
(According to Mr. Dung, the person who gave Ms. Lan’s money to him was Tiep. Sources said this alluded to Major General Tran Quang Tiep, an assistant to Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang.)
Lieutenant General Hoang Kong Tu, chief of the investigative police under the public security ministry, told Cong An Nhan Dan (People’s Police) newspaper in an interview on Friday that the information in the BBC Vietnamese lines was fabricated because Dung had admitted to receiving Lan’s money from Tiec (not Tiep).
Police have verified Dung’s testimony and identified Tiec as Ngo Xuan Tiec whose permanent residency is registered at 277 Pham Van Hai Street, Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City, Lieutenant General Tu said.
Tiec, 53, is the chairman and general director of Tam Sinh Nghia Development and Investment Joint Stock Company, the police official added.
He was already interrogated by police and wrote a statement refuting Dung’s declaration, Lieutenant General Tu said.
Duong Chi Dung, 57, is an ex-chairman of the Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines). Dung was sentenced to death at his first instance trial on December 16, 2013 on charges of embezzlement related to the purchase of a US$9 million old floating dock from a Russian company in 2008.
The ex-chairman testified before a Hanoi court that trialed his younger brother Duong Tu Trong, former deputy director of the Police Department in the northern city of Hai Phong, in January that Lan, who is believed to be the boss of a major firm in Ho Chi Minh City, transferred VND20 billion (about $952,380 now) to a person who then handed the money over to Dung.
Dung said at the same court, which was hearing a case in which 52-year-old Trong was charged with leading a group to help his brother flee from Vietnam in May 2012 to avoid an arrest in association with Dung’s wrongdoing at Vinalines, that he gave the amount to a police chief to arrange one of the firm’s business affairs.
Lieutenant General Tu told Cong An Nhan Dan that if Nguyễn Hùng who is a reporter at BBC Vietnamese, a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, is confirmed as the writer of the article “Dương Chí Dũng và những triệu đôla,” Vietnamese investigators will ask for the British judiciary’s help to summon Hùng to Vietnam for their investigation into the slander case in accordance with the law of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Vietnam and the UK signed a treaty on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters in 2009, Nguyen Tien Tai, a lawyer, told Tuoi Tre.
Legal assistance includes providing documents, records, and other evidentiary material; serving documents; executing requests for search and seizure; taking the testimony or statements of persons including by video-conference or television; and others.
However the two sides have yet to sign any treaty on extradition, the lawyer said.
BBC Vietnamese said at the end of the article that the piece was modified at 1730 GMT on April 25, 2014 following “new information” published in “newspapers in Vietnam.” It also provided a hyperlink to Lieutenant General Hoang Kong Tu’s interview with Cong An Nhan Dan (People’s Police) newspaper. |
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Đăng ký: VietNam News